Wednesday, October 21, 2009

This could turn into the most entertaining conflict of the decade. After years of spewing hate on those cultures that eat dogs, animal rights activists, who were often the first to jump on the green bandwagon, are suddenly coming face to face with their conflicting emotions.

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

For some time now, we have waited (but breathing comfortably) to see which of the environmentalists would be the first to stop talking about population reduction and start practicing it. Perhaps now, the possibility of a slightly less harsh radical approach to planet salvation will appease the conscience of many.

We shall see, eh? Who among them will love the planet more than Fido?

How do you get out of the conundrum that your useless pet is a bigger Gaia rapist than a Land Cruiser? The moral dilemma must be tearing them apart.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living....

Professor Vale says the title of the book is meant to shock, but the couple, who do not have a cat or dog, believe the reintroduction of non-carnivorous pets into urban areas would help slow down global warming.

"The title of the book is a little bit of a shock tactic, I think, but though we are not advocating eating anyone's pet cat or dog there is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."

Just a shock tactic, eh? More like a moral beat down between the holy factions of the religion of global warming.

NEWSFLASH - People don't eat their "pet" chickens.

Still, perhaps they will learn a little tolerance for cultures that have used dogs sustainably for millenia?

the development of peripheral and hepatic insulin resistance relative to one another in the context of obesity-associated insulin resistance is not well understood. To examine this phenomena, we used the moderate fat-fed dog model, which has been shown to develop both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity and severe insulin resistance.

and the authors concluded:

Our results indicate that a diet enriched with a moderate amount of fat results in the development of both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity, hyperinsulinemia, and a modest degree of peripheral insulin resistance.

How did they achieve these results? To quote Peter (of Hyperlipid)

Cr@p in a bag: Total calories 3,885kcal/d

For "less cr@p in a bag but plus 2g/kg bacon grease": more like 3,945kcal/d

This is for a 27kg dog sitting in a cage.

Go on, read that again; 3,945kcal/d. I'm not joking.

The real trick of course, is to blame the subsequent insulin resistance on saturated fat.

Peter writes:

So this is another study where the introduction and discussion are utterly divorced from the methods and the results (and from reality). It's worth just flicking through the methods and, in your mind's eye, look at how much money was used on these dogs. A clinical MRI was around about £1000 a shot in the UK Home Counties in 2009.

This study was funded in the US of course, guess we all look forward to such sterling research with our tarp funds.